Briton, Canadian university student arrested over Dhaka cafe attack

Dhaka: A British national and a student of a Canadian university were arrested over their suspected involvement in last month's deadly terror attack at a cafe in Dhaka that killed 22 people, Bangladesh police said on Thursday.

Hasnat Karim, 47, a former teacher of North South University and a British citizen, and Tahmid Hasib, 22, a student at the University of Toronto, who were witnesses to the bloody carnage inside the Holey Artisan Bakery and O' Kitchen Restaurant on July 1, were arrested on Wednesday night in Dhaka, the Daily Star reported.

Neither of the two were seen in public since the end of the siege when commandos stormed the cafe on the morning of July 2, police said.

Humayun Kabir, an inspector of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit, produced them before a court on Thursday and sought their 10-day custody for interrogating them over the attack.

A Dhaka court remanded them to eight days police custody.

The two were among the 32 hostages rescued from the cafe, where the attackers killed 22 people, including 18 foreigners and two policemen.

All of them were released, except for Hasanat and Tahmid, claimed their families. They even maintained that the duo were in police custody and were yet to return.

Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Hoque told The Daily Star on Tuesday that both were "under surveillance".